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From: pbh@phesk.demon.co.uk (Peter Hesketh)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: On the Naming of UNIX Things
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 96 21:54:06 GMT
Organization: home
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <848094846snz@phesk.demon.co.uk>
References: <55vhpf$q3o@mail1.wg.waii.com> <328386bc.112278367@news.ov.com> <562i2k$f3a@kirin.wwa.com> <steve.847913388@fastnet.prd.co.uk>
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In article <steve.847913388@fastnet.prd.co.uk>
steve@fastnet.prd.co.uk "Steve Blinkhorn" writes:
> Next we'll be hearing from people who know what it was like to have no
> more than 100K 36-bit words to do real programming in.
>
> Is there a comp.nostalgia group (INPUT IN CAPS ONLY at 10cps, wearing
> ear defenders)?
Ah! Memories of the KDN2 come rushing back. 4K by 18 bits which controlled
the hot saw which cut up girders and paid for itself every three months for
the whole of its 10 year life. It was installed in a steelworks where they
rolled ingots into H-section rolled-steel-joists. In the old days, a
steelworker measured the resulting length, a clerk looked at current orders
to see how the RSJ could be sliced into sections in the most economical way,
and the hot saw operator cut it up. When the KDN2 arrived, with its
length-measuring photocells, it increased yield from 80% to 95% overnight.
That was a REAL computer. Hardware divide in 25 milliseconds.
But not as old as the machine which printed my first pay-slip. That was
an English Electric Deuce, which used valve logic (translated as toob logic
for those separated by a common language)
I think it was the Deuce which helped originate the saying, "Ouch! I'm glad
that pin was binary 0. A binary 1 would have killed me."
--
Peter Hesketh from Mynyddbach, Monmouthshire, UK